SOUTHPORT hospital is facing the toughest target in the country for tackling the potentially deadly superbug MRSA.

Chiefs at Southport and Ormskirk Hospitals NHS Trust have defended their “excellent record” of fighting the bacterium – after the revelation that it more than doubled its target for recorded cases in the first three months of the 2007/8 financial year.

That quarterly target is based on a “very challenging” annual target of 10 cases a year – the lowest figure for any acute hospital in the country.

But in the three months from April, Southport and Ormskirk’s Trust reported six MRSA cases.

That equates to twice the quarterly target - of three recorded cases.

Yet results for the current quarter are looking far more positive, said Dr Geraldine Boocock, the Trust’s director of infection control.

“Although we have not yet officially reported the most recent figures, indications suggest that in the last three months, there has only been one case,” she said.

The stringent target set by the Department of Health follows the Trust’s past success in combating MRSA, a bacterium that has evolved a resistance to a number of common antibiotics.

“In the six years that figures have had to be reported we have consistently had among the lowest number of cases of MRSA in the country, “ said Dr Boocock.

“If patients, who are due for admission to our hospitals, have any concerns about MRSA, they are welcome to contact our Infection Control Team, as the last thing we want is for a patient to not get vital treatment because of unnecessary fears.”

Official figures released at the start of November show there were 28 recorded cases of another superbug, clostridium difficile, at Southport and Ormskirk Hospitals between April and June 2007.

C-diff predominantly affects older people, and all but five of those cases involved people over 65.

Aintree University Hospitals recorded a total of 85 C-diff cases between April and June.